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Justin

It's a big day in UK politics today. There is a new Prime Minister. I know, I know we have had this in the past, in the recent past, but Matt Chorley at least is excited, so is otherwise engaged. But americanswers continues at the worldwide headquarters and we're answering your questions as ever today. And there is a wide range of questions as ever as well. So for instance, is the sit in Iran starting to look like a forever war? You remember those are the wars that Donald Trump promised not to have and indeed whether the US is running out of options to end the war. Plus of course the World cup finishing on Sunday. In the build up we asked if it was the most controversial in history. What is the verdict now that it has all finished? We will be talking through those and plenty of other questions as well. Welcome to America answers

Mariana

AmericasT America from BBC News.

Donald Trump

You hear that John? Oh, I think when I hear that sound it reminds me of money.

Justin

We didn't start this war, but under President Trump we are finishing it.

Mariana

This is a big cover up and this administration is engaged in it.

Sarah

This guy has Trump derangement syndrome.

Narrator

I have four words for you.

Donald Trump

Turn the volume up.

Sarah

Hello, it's Sarah here in the BBC's Washington bureau.

Justin

And it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmericasT in London, England.

Mariana

And it is Mariana sitting next to Justin in the worldwide headquarters.

Justin

And let us get straight to questions. And the first one comes from Michael in Hampshire who asks us via email, how are Trumpians and other Americans seeing the war with Iran? Surely it now qualifies as a never ending war. Sarah, that is true, actually, isn't it? Or at least there isn't currently on the stocks. An obvious way of them ending it.

Sarah

Yeah, exactly. These are the wars that Donald Trump railed against when he was campaigning for the presidency, saying that he wouldn't get embroiled in any more forever wars or never ending wars. And although what's happening Iran's been going on for about five months now, which isn't the five years that a lot of these other conflicts have gone on for, it does have the feeling that it's getting entrenched and there is no obvious end in sight. And so this is the point at which you would assume even some of Donald Trump's most loyal supporters would be revolting about this, and certainly in the kind of influencer sphere, and commentators are very angry and upset with the President about it. But not all of the base, I would say. I had a fascinating trip just a couple of weeks ago to South Dakota, and we went to Mount Rushmore because Donald Trump was visiting there. But mostly I was just trying to speak to Americans who'd come from all over the country to visit Mount Rushmore. And I met a lot of Republicans who were in full support of what Donald Trump was doing in Iran.

Outro Host

Full support.

Sarah

Firstly, they said he wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't necessary. So their belief in him was such that if he thinks it's the right thing to do, he can contradict any campaign promises that he made, because they believe in him more than they believe in the substance of what he said. And then they started parroting back phrases you hear from the president all the time, that, yes, of course, prices have gone up in America, but that's nothing like what the cost would be if Iran were to develop a nuclear weapon, and that you can't put a price on safety and security, and that they were more than happy to be paying more for petrol or gas, as they obviously call it, if that's what the President thought was needed to be done. And people I spoke to, plenty of them who I spoke to, who were against the war in Iran, weren't really Donald Trump supporters in the first place. And so it was really eye opening to me, the number of people I met who were very happy to say that they back the president pretty much whatever he does.

Justin

Which has been a feature, hasn't it, of Donald Trump's presence in American politics for the last decade, longer than a decade now. I mean, he has. I Remember back in 2016, there were sort of scholarly articles where they would ask Trumpians, as Michael from Hampshire calls them Trumpians, whether they supported X or supported Y. And then when told the president now supports Y, they would change their support from X to Y and do it quite naturally and say, no, if he believes it, then we believe it too. And it is exactly as you say, sir. It's a really big reminder, isn't it, that there is a quite large group of people, we refer to them aerially as the base, but a large group of people in various walks of life around the United States who are followers of Donald Trump and they trust Donald

Mariana

Trump still, even in whatever. Yeah, exactly. Thick and thin. But it's kind of the whole vibes thing, right, that Donald Trump was elected on the basis of personality and vibes and of course, policies. But actually he's tied less so to those and more so to people are saying, I'm gonna vote for you because I trust the decisions that you're gonna make as president.

Sarah

There's one other difference as well, of course, with what's happening in Iran and previous wars that Donald Trump's railed against, like in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is the US Casualties are very low up until this point. I mean, this weekend in attacks on US Bases, two soldiers were killed, one's missing, so we don't know what might happen there. But that's a tiny fraction of what you saw in Afghanistan, in Iraq, thinking back to Vietnam, when you had so many of the armed forces being killed or really, really seriously injured and coming home, that if it seems unlikely, it's difficult to imagine the circumstances in which Donald Trump would ever agree to put boots on the ground and therefore potentially sustain far more casualties. But I think that is another key difference that we shouldn't overlook.

Justin

Going back to Michael's question, that is precisely it, isn't it? That's the big, big difference. So surely it now qualifies as a never ending war. Michael says one of these forever wars. Forever wars, by the way, a book written, I think in the early 1970s by. It was a sci fi book written by someone who was an objector to the Vietnam War. So it's been a kind of. It's been there as an idea in American politics for decades, this idea that you shouldn't get involved in a forever war. So this seems to me to be a forever war if they do go for the boots on the ground. Because the one thing you can do when you bomb things is Sarah, of course, is stop bombing them. And in a sense then sort of declare, well, the war's over. And in a sense we're still getting that, aren't we, from the White House and from the secretary of State, actually, Marco Rubio, we should listen to him saying at the height of this latest uptick in violence and the targeting of coastal sites with radar, drone facilities, even a desalination plant, according to Iranian media. And that would be an upping of the ante. But amid all of that, on Sunday evening, Marco Rubio saying two reporters at the air base at Andrews Air Base in Washington saying this, what I will

Marco Rubio

say is that the United States always remains open to a diplomatic solution. We've tried multiple times with Iran and we'll continue to try. If that that door opens, we'll be happy to see it open. But. Right. And they continue to send signals that they want to talk, that they want to negotiate. But their behavior is what we're responding to, and their behavior is they're launching missiles and drones against ships, including tonight.

Sarah

That shows you, doesn't it, Justin, I think, where the confusion is within all of this diplomatic process and why it's going to be so incredibly difficult to get it back on track. Marco Rubio there is saying that it's the Iranians who broke the deal, the ceasefire deal, essentially, by launching missiles and drones against ships. Well, the Iranians say that they were within their rights within the ceasefire deal to do that because they were the ones who were supposed to be administering the Strait of Hormuz and they're attacking ships that aren't going through the particular channel in the strait that the Iranians want them to use. So, I mean, this is a consequence of some very loose language in that memorandum of understanding, which was fudged in order to get both sides to agree to it, and then unsurprisingly, very quickly became unstuck because it wasn't absolutely clear what everybody had to stick to all along. Donald Trump also has been saying, firstly that the Iranians are sending signals that they want to negotiate and that he is happy to do so as well, that he would still prefer a negotiated outcome. But I don't think we're any closer to seeing how that could possibly work than we were either when they signed that memorandum of understanding or when it started falling to bits.

Mariana

Another aspect of this story is that we have been seeing some disagreement on the right. So Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene were arguing on social media at the weekend. So Pete Hegseth had posted saying, godspeed, heroes. Their sacrifice only stiffens our resolve, which was about these two US Service members who were killed in Jordan. And then Marjorie Taylor Greene responded by saying sacrifice. What the beep are you talking about? They did not willingly sacrifice themselves. They were killed because of the war you, Trump and the admin are waging on behalf of a foreign country, Israel. You mean their deaths fuel your bloodlust for a senseless war.

Justin

And when I read that Sarah, I thought of that could come from anyone on the progressive left, so called, couldn't it? I mean it would absolutely not be out of place. Those very words from, I don't know, Zoram Adani or anyone else representing the progressive left he might have temporized.

Mariana

I think she goes further than.

Justin

Yeah, examiner. Yeah, no, it's a good point. It's a good point. Probably goes further and clearer about Israel disliking Israel and not thinking he should be doing Israel's bidding, et cetera, et cetera. It really is the horseshoe has met

Sarah

and the shift in American politics on the left and on the right against Israel is absolutely remarkable. And that's what's going to be the biggest change, I think that's come out of this war with Iran, but also with what happened in Gaza and, and with anger on both sides of the political divide about that as well and with Bibi Netanyahu. But we're looking at, I think, a generational change in the way America is going to be dealing with Israel. It tends to be older politicians and commentators who still think that America should stick by Israel come what may and continue to supply it with arms and billions of dollars every year. And among younger activists that all parts of the political spectrum, you're hearing more and more anger about the way Israel's behaving, why it's unnecessary for America to be propping them up. And of course, you know, in some quarters that spills over into really nasty antisemitism. But there are a lot of people who are not remotely anti Semitic but who are absolutely arguing that America has been led around by the nose by Israel and that that has to stop. And I think that's going to produce a real long term change here.

Mariana

Actually, I think it's worth highlighting as well that a lot of the language Marjorie Taylor Greene is using there and the argument she's making is one that some of the alternative influen defenses who have previously been very big supporters of Donald Trump but are shifting away from that. Take Tucker Carlson, take Candace Owens. They talk about Israel in this way all the time. And I think it'll Be really interesting to see how that does play out over the next couple of years, really, because they have been instrumental in really drumming up support for Donald Trump. And if they ebb away, you see, I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene is just the sort of tip of the iceberg. But you wonder how many other people will buy into their arguments. Much more so than Donald Trump.

Sarah

All right, moving on. We have had an email from Lance in Devon and he is asking about the announcement this weekend that Truth Social, that's Donald Trump's own social media platform, is proposing to sell early releases of policy changes to users who pay, he says, a no doubt substantial fee as a form of enhanced subscription. Surely financial regulators would have to consider this the equivalent to insider trading. And this was an announcement that came from the Trump and Media Technology Group who owned Truth Social, saying that a paid service will give wall firms instant access to market related posts. So anything that Donald Trump's announcing new policy or tariffs or whatever, that could potentially move markets. And over the last few months, I mean, Donald Trump has been moving markets enormously with things that he says over the war in Iran that affect the price of oil or tariff announcements. I mean, yeah, I mean, way more than any other president normally. I think things he says have the potential to shift billions of dollars around on Wall Street.

Donald Trump

Yeah.

Mariana

And there's a suggestion that it could be as much as $100,000 a month for this subscription, although that's from Reuters. But other reports do suggest this lower fee of about $60,000 a month. Easy, easy if you sign up for a three year plan. It's really interesting this, because Trump Media and Technology Group have been pretty vague about whether Donald Trump's own posts will be included in this package deal or not. I mean, they are obviously the ones that people are most interested in in terms of their ability to move the market and so on and so forth. I think the main thing away from this is what we've known for quite a while, which is true. Social is not profitable, really. It's kind of like a, I don't know, like an announcement portal for Donald Trump, really. Like it doesn't have. It might have a pretty active user base, but it doesn't have a huge user base. And particularly with Elon Musk taking over X, there was never this mass migration to Truth Social. So this seems to me like a kind of obvious way for them to try and make sure that their platform is profitable and sustainable. Because at the moment it's just sort of like Donald Trump having his kind of ownership Outlet, really. I mean, there are other accounts that use it, but it's only really when he posts and then it's reported, like statements that we hear about Truth Social. It's not otherwise hugely active.

Justin

Is it insider trading? I don't think it is because it's still publicly accessible and insider trading is trading on information that isn't publicly accessible. So that sort of, by its tight definition, legal definition, I wouldn't have thought it is. Is it, well, dodgy, to use another. To use another phrase, Sarah. Well, dodgy, I think probably covers it.

Outro Host

Yeah.

Sarah

And I suppose you're right, Justin, because you can pay a subscription to Reuters news Service or something, can't you, to Associated Press. And then you would see announcements maybe a bit quicker than before they'd been turned around and put on the BBC website or the New York Times website or something. So I suppose it's analogous with that and therefore probably not illegal. The plans are very vague. When I was reading them last week, it seemed to me that we were maybe talking about a matter of seconds, actually, between when people who paid the subscription would find out what the President was saying and when people like us were. Because I was scratching my head trying to work out if, as journalists we would need to subscribe to this in order to get the news fast enough. But I think we're talking about a very, very short amount of time.

Justin

I'd love to see your expenses for that, Sarah.

Sarah

Yes, that could be a little bit tricky.

Justin

That's gonna be higher than your bar bill.

Sarah

We'd just come back with refused, well dodgy written on it, wouldn't it?

Justin

Yeah, I don't. I mean, if it's seconds, we think of the Bloomberg terminal, don't you? So the people who want to know, who need to know things very quickly, as in seconds count, subscribe to the Bloomberg terminals, big financial institutions, et cetera. And I suppose you could subscribe as an individual if you really wanted to, but are you really getting yourself very far?

Mariana

It's only useful, really if you require that information to make money out of it, essentially. Also, it's worth saying that when Donald Trump is no longer president, that subscription's probably not very useful. So you'd have to have a bit of an expiry date on it. Imagine in like five years time, you're like, why are we paying $100,000 for Truth Social? What's going on here?

Justin

It's like one of those things where you find you signed up for something and you then.

Mariana

And then you go in your bill,

Sarah

you're like, what is.

Justin

What was I doing? Yeah. Yeah. Let's go to another email. It comes from Alan in Portsmouth, who sent us this question. What happens to the USA in terms of all things DJ Trump has put his name on or has had changed to suit his presidency, that is the Gulf of America, Miami, DJ Trump Airport, the Department of War, his signature on the $100 bill, Trump Class warships, et cetera, et cetera. Can the new presidential team remove Trump's name? Almost like a big cleanup operation to restore things back to some sort of sensible place that we can all feel comfortable with, says Alan, speaking for the people, at least that he knows in Portsmouth. Sarah. But is he gonna be disappointed or not in, I don't know, five years time, 10 years time?

Sarah

Well, fascinating, isn't it? Because there's what can you do legally? And then there's what are people likely to do politically? So, yes, legally, they could probably change absolutely everything. So his signature on the $100 bill, I think, is a special thing just for this 250th year, because that's how it's not meant. Living president's not meant to be on the currency. So that's how he got around that. Yeah, I mean, he changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and you could change it back just as easily. You might remember President Obama changed the name of Mount McKinley in Alaska to Mount Denali, which was to recognize Native American names and not impose the name of a white presidential candidate on it. Well, as soon as he was back in office, Donald Trump just changed it back again to Mount McKinley. So people can do that kind of thing. I mean, in terms of the airports, every other airport's named after somebody, and many of them presidents. I fly in and out of Ronald Reagan Airport all the time, and quite often from Ronald Reagan Airport into John F. Kennedy Airport. So why shouldn't Donald Trump have an airport named after him or a class of warships? That does happen with other presidents. The question is, when he leaves office, will there be a point at which his name is so toxic? It is. It's politically acceptable. It may be even a political imperative for somebody to sort of clean it off everything. Or will he go down as one of the biggest, most transformative presidents in American history and that he's got every right, like Ronald Reagan or at one of these other big Republican presidents, to, you know, to have his name memorialized all over the place.

Justin

Is there a Richard Nixon airport? I can't think of one. I don't think There is. There's obviously a Richard Nixon Presidential Library, but there is. There isn't an airport, is there? Oh, maybe one will come, because there's a bit of a resurgence in Nixon popularity, isn't there? On some parts of the. Right. There used to be a Bob Hope Airport in Los Angeles, and then they got rid of it because nobody knew where it was. So you can lose the names, can't you? But I suppose, yeah, it will depend on his legacy, won't it? And whether anyone can be bothered, I suppose, to relitigate stuff or whether they just. Because with Reagan Airport, some people who don't like Ronald Reagan still call it national, don't they? And they can just. And you can get away with that.

Sarah

It's a lot easier, of course, to take his name off things than it will be to try and shrink the size of the enormous ballroom or get rid of the Arc de Trump if he manages to put that up in Washington or some of the other physical changes that he's making to the White House and the whole of Washington.

Justin

That's a good point, actually, isn't it? Because blowing things up, that's not a good look. That's not a good look. Is it?

Mariana

Also when a lot of money's been spent on making him in the first place.

Narrator

Yeah.

Justin

Flattening the ballroom. You're going to be a brave president. Who does that? It depends slightly, I think. Well, obviously, really, it depends how he leaves office.

Sarah

I mean, one thing Donald Trump hasn't managed to get his name on yet is the World cup trophy. But he was very much there at the World cup final and got himself involved in handing over the trophy as well, inserting himself into the ceremony. And it looked like having to be kind of chased off the stage so that Spain could take their victory photos, lifting the cup without having Donald Trump right there in the middle of it. And afterwards, he spoke to reporters about what he made of the final.

Donald Trump

I thought it was incredible. It was four times greater than any FIFA ever held, and it's probably about five times, actually, they're telling me today. So we're very proud of our country. We're very proud of the job that was done by everybody. We congratulate Johnny Infantino and all of his staff and the incredible job they did. But this was one of the greatest events of any kind ever held, so we're really happy that it. It did so well. And all over the world, people have come and they've loved our country, you know, shown off our country in a different light. It was a great thing. It was a great event and I'm glad you all enjoyed it.

Mariana

I have to say I am absolutely gutted that the World cup is over, just because I absolutely love watching it. And I've nearly completed my World cup sticker book. What I found really interesting, though, watching the final was, yeah, you knew that Donald Trump would do this thing where he tries to get in the photo, Right. Because he did the same when Chelsea won the Club World Cup. And there were all of these quite funny pictures of footballers like Cole Palmer and Rhys James looking at him like, why are you here? And again yesterday, he sort of stood in the middle with Rodri, who's the captain of Spain. And then you saw Rodri kind of look at him like, can you move along, please? And then you've got Infantino kind of leading him away, like, you can't actually stand in the middle of the photo. And there was loads of analysis on social media about the way that the different players interacted with Donald Trump. So there were two Argentinian players that appeared to not shake his hand when they went up on stage. You saw sort of Rodri, for example, the captain, kind of waiting for him to move out the way. And there's something quite interesting about the political. I know we did our whole miniseries on this about the World cup, but the kind of political undercurrents of this World cup and how people were sort of analyzing in a way I've not really seen before, like, people shaking hands or. I actually just think quite a lot of footballers probably are inherently quite uncomfortable with football becoming political in a way that they're not used to.

Sarah

Right.

Mariana

Like, they're really good at playing football. It's not always their job to have a strong political opinion. But there are, for example, footballers like Kylian Mbappe, who regularly posts about politics and is actually really sort of supportive for that on social media. So it's been interesting watching how in some ways, the kind of Trumpian involvement has meant that some players have decided to make political points, it seems, in ways they wouldn't usually.

Justin

Was it a success, Sarah?

Sarah

Well, to the extent that America fell in love with soccer or football and really, really got involved in watching and enjoying the games, even after the United States went out. They were very, very welcoming of the England and the Scotland team. Scotland made a huge impression on Boston for the short amount of time they were still in the tournament. And, yeah, I mean. And nothing went wrong, really, did it? Apart from Donald Trump's involvement over a red card, it was probably, yeah, by that measure a success. How you decide whether it was four times greater or five times greater than any other World cup ever held, I don't know. Now, he might be talking about revenue or tickets sold or something like that, something by which it's measurable. But that would be because it was a much bigger compet than ever before with more teams playing more rounds, wasn't it, Mariana?

Mariana

Yeah, it was. It was a, a, a massive tournament in terms of the number of teams. And you saw teams like Cape Verde who had a brilliant tournament, like made it way further than anyone thought, their goalkeeper had some incredible performances and there was this real, like we, we chatted about it on another episode. But this real feel good factor around people coming to America and their, you know, people, Americans embracing their cultures and people embracing American culture. You saw like the Norwegians doing their robots stuff and you saw, I mean, all sorts of Algerians in Louisville, Kansas. You know, you saw, you saw so many really kind of positive displays of America and of foreign cultures meeting America. But one thing I would say, just on your point, Sarah, you made about the red card saga when Donald Trump basically said he'd called up Infantino and asked for them to overturn this red card, was that I think that Donald Trump and America actually come quite well out of the World cup, but I don't think FIFA come very well out of it. And the, the narratives around sort of corruption from FIFA are the most like, cemented I've ever seen them on social media. And you saw that play out at the final because people were convinced without sort of tangible evidence that Argentina were being deliberately favored in some way and Spain had to win. Like everyone was supporting Spain. People did not want Argentina to win because there was this perception that they were somehow being favoured by FIFA and Infantino.

Justin

What about the perception of the game in the us? Because there was this post on X from Rich Lowry, who's the editor of the National Review. So very big conservative voice in America. Not a Trump supporter particularly, but an important voice on the conservative right. And he says, I know countless millions of people love soccer can be a thrilling game. We witnessed it repeatedly during the World Cup. But here's his objection, Marianna. He says that flopping and pretend injuries are unworthy of grown men. You think someone rolling around in the turf in agonizing pain is going to have to be transported immediately to the hospital. Then you look up and he's played another 45 minutes or probably. So basically he's saying it is un American and that is why soccer will never appeal to the American masculine mind.

Mariana

I don't know. But I don't think Brits, I think if you look at the way that the English national team play, like they don't tend to roll around and sort of like pretend they're dying on the floor. Not quite so much as I think there are some teams that were much more dramatic in their response to injuries than others. But I guess when you watch football like I watch spurs, unfortunately, week in, week out, and when you watch the Premier League, you just become used to that kind of thing. I think the thing that Americans would struggle with about, about the Premier League versus say the World cup is that there were so many exciting games in this World cup because it's knockout tournament. I mean if anyone stayed up and watched that Mexico England game, it was brilliant. Even the third place playoff game was like very exciting between England and France. But most of the time football is a lot of boring nil.

Justin

Nils Ready? Ho. That is it for this edition of America Answers. Pleasure as always to answer your questions, but from all of us, Bye bye bye bye.

Outro Host

Thank you for answering our call and continuing to send us your messages. We do read every single one and love to hear your thoughts, feedback and questions. So please do keep them coming. You can send us an email ameracastbc.co.uk the WhatsApp that's 443-301-23-9480 and you can get involved in the Americast Discord server. The link to that is in the description. And don't forget to subscribe. That way you'll never miss an episode. So until next time, goodbye.

Podcast Promo Voice

How did a boycott Jimmy become a billionaire?

Narrator

From posting videos on Good Bad Billionaire. We're going to find out how the world's most popular YouTuber MrBeast made his fortune.

Podcast Promo Voice

He's buried himself in a coffin for

Narrator

days, counted to 100,000 on camera and

Podcast Promo Voice

even recreated squid games all in an attempt to go viral on the Internet.

Narrator

But it all started when he gave a homeless man $10,000. So is he a philanthropist reshaping capitalism

Podcast Promo Voice

or is he just the king of the attention economy?

Narrator

Find out on Good Bad billionaire listen

Podcast Promo Voice

on BBC.com or wherever you get your podc costs.